The Snowshoe Trail

It was not the first time that people of the forest had paused on the hill at twilight to look down on Bradleyburg. The sight always seemed to intrigue and mystify the wild folk...

Bill knew perfectly that he would play in good fortune if the loss in horseflesh did not cost him most of the gains of the undertaking. Even the sturdy mustangs were not bred fo...

"It's a big order," Bill spoke softly. "There's just one thing we can do--to look into the country where he's gone and try to trace him. Every man who goes through Clearwater le...

A rusted camp stove had been erected in the cabin and she watched, fascinated, his quick actions as he built a fire. With astonishingly few strokes he cut down a pitch-laden spr...

She didn't know why her breath suddenly caught in awe. Some way the scene before her eyes scarcely seemed real. The thickets hid the stream to the right and left, and all she co...

It was not that they did not know their rightful course. Both were fully aware that such a fire as they could build could only gleam a few yards through the heavy spruce thicket...

"Not breakfast--lunch," he corrected. "It's already about noon. But it would be very nice if you'd do the cooking while I cut the night's fuel. You know how--dilute a little can...

"You see this little catch behind the trigger guard?" The girl nodded. "When you want to fire it, all you have to do is to push up the little catch with your thumb and pull the...

"Won't you find him for me, Bill?" she cried. "You are so strong, so capable--you can do anything, anything you try. Won't you find him and bring him back to me?"

Harold leaped then, savage as a wolf, and his rifle swung in his arms. Instantly Bill's form, impassive before, seemed simply to waken with life. There was no rage in his face,...

Virginia held hard on her faculties and balanced his words. She had known Chicago men during the six years that she had moved in the most exalted social circles of her own city....

Bill answered nothing, but went to see. In the firing he hadn't even raised his own gun to his shoulder. There is a certain code among hunters in regard to shooting another's ga...

"I didn't shoot because I couldn't," Harold replied earnestly. "At first you were between me and the bear--and then Virginia was. It all happened so quickly that there was nothi...

A musher in the soft wet snow can only go at a certain pace. There is no way to hurry the operation and get speedily over the difficulties. Any attempt to quicken the pace resul...

The fire had evidently burned down and out. He struggled to open his eyes, then gazed around the walls in search of the opening in the door. But he could not see the reflection...

"Listen, Harold," she pleaded. "Don't tell me to go back to bed. I feel--I know something's happened to him. He couldn't have gone on clear to the cabin in that awful snow; he e...

"Yes--but we can't go now." Joe's face grew crafty. The wolfish character of his eyes was for the moment all the more pronounced. There was a hint of excitement in his swarthy,...

She could conceive of no circumstances whereby her fate would be altered. She knew now, as well as she knew the fact of her own life, that she had been trapped and snared and ch...

Virginia's pistol was in Joe's hand by now, and he shot in Bill's direction. Two spurts of yellow fire broke for an instant the utter gloom. But there was no time for a third sh...

"As soon as it gets light enough for him to see, I want you to go out the cabin door. Turn at once into the brush at your right, so he can't shoot you with the rifle. Then come...